Why Instructional Design Is the Best-Kept Secret in the Design World

The power of Instructional design (ID) is hiding in plain sight. It’s rigorous, creative, and deeply interdisciplinary—yet often misunderstood or outright overlooked by designers in fields like graphic design, UX, and industrial design. One reason? Where it’s taught.

Instructional design is nestled within colleges of education, not design schools, which keeps it walled off from the broader design community. This academic divide limits exposure, cross-pollination, and recognition of instructional design as a bona fide design discipline.

The Academic Divide: How Instructional Design Got Stuck

In most U.S. universities, instructional design programs are housed in colleges of education. Historically, this made sense: the field emerged during World War II to develop military training programs rooted in educational theory.

As instructional design has evolved—folding in technology, cognitive science, and human-centered design—it has remained tethered to its educational roots. Meanwhile, design disciplines like graphic design, industrial design, and architecture thrive in art, design, or engineering schools, where students collaborate across specialties and see design as a shared language.

Instructional designers, however, often interact primarily with future educators and administrators. This limits their visibility and influence in professional design spaces, perpetuating the misconception that instructional design is "just for classrooms" instead of a field that shapes how people engage with information and experiences across industries.

Why This Matters

1. Missed Opportunities for Collaboration: Design is inherently collaborative. Whether it’s UX and industrial design teaming up to create intuitive interfaces or graphic designers working with marketers to tell a story, great design emerges from cross-pollination. But when instructional design is siloed in education departments, it misses the chance to engage with other design disciplines—and vice versa. This isolation deprives students and professionals of the opportunity to learn from one another.
2. Perpetuated Misconceptions: Many designers see instructional design as synonymous with training manuals or corporate e-learning modules—narrow and utilitarian. But instructional design isn’t just about creating learning materials; it’s about solving complex human problems through empathy, iteration, and systems thinking. This misunderstanding, reinforced by its academic home, obscures its creative and problem-solving potential.
3. Limited Visibility: Instructional design rarely gets a seat at the table in design-focused conferences or publications, making it invisible to much of the design world. Graphic design students might graduate having studied UX, motion graphics, or branding—but never encountering instructional design, despite its shared emphasis on user-centered processes.
4. Overlooked Parallels: Instructional design has more in common with other design fields than most realize: iterative prototyping, user testing, and even aesthetics. Yet these overlaps remain unexamined because ID is framed as "educational" rather than a design discipline in its own right.

Signs of Change: Breaking Down Silos

The tides are starting to shift. Take the Digital Media Design Graduate Program at Harvard Extension School . Among its core offerings—web development, animation, and media production—you’ll find instructional design alongside traditionally "creative" disciplines. This signals a growing acknowledgment of ID’s relevance beyond education.

By merging pedagogy with technology and creative problem-solving, programs like this pave the way for instructional design to claim its rightful place in the design world. These shifts point toward a future where instructional design isn’t an outlier but a central player in the broader design conversation.

The Numbers Tell the Story

Consider this: there are over 250,000 graphic designers in the U.S. but only about 99,000 instructional designers. This isn’t just a workforce gap—it’s an awareness gap. Graphic design students often encounter UX or industrial design during their studies. But instructional design? Rarely, if ever. This lack of exposure perpetuates the invisibility of a field that’s every bit as dynamic and impactful.

How to Bring Instructional Design Into the Fold

1. Encourage Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Academia: Universities should foster partnerships between instructional design programs and design schools. Joint courses, shared studios, or interdisciplinary projects could spark new ideas and expand how students understand design’s role in the world.
2. Reframe the Narrative: Instructional design isn’t just for classrooms. It’s a design discipline, grounded in empathy, iteration, and creativity. Programs should highlight these connections to attract students who might otherwise gravitate toward more traditional design fields.
3. Showcase Diverse Applications: Instructional design isn’t limited to education—it’s thriving in healthcare, corporate onboarding, museum exhibits, and more. Sharing these examples helps demonstrate its relevance and potential for collaboration across industries.
4. Engage With Broader Design Communities: Instructional designers should present their work at design conferences, contribute to design publications, and advocate for ID’s inclusion in conversations about design’s future. Representation matters, and it’s time for instructional design to step into the spotlight.

A More Connected Design Ecosystem

Instructional design is overdue for recognition as a core design discipline, alongside UX, industrial, and graphic design. Its practitioners tackle some of the most complex challenges—crafting experiences that transform how people learn, engage, and grow. By breaking down the silos that separate instructional design from other fields, we open the door to richer collaboration and innovation across the design ecosystem.

Let’s stop treating instructional design as a best-kept secret and start recognizing it for what it is: a creative, impactful, and essential design discipline.

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